peter marino art foundation showcases newly updated collection in the hamptons

peter marino’s ever-rotating art foundation

Peter Marino, winner of THE DESIGN PRIZE 2021 for Best Exhibition, showcases his Art Foundation in the breezy, sunny Hamptons with a freshly updated collection. When the space first opened its doors during summer 2021 (see designboom’s coverage here), it displayed over one hundred artworks selected from his extensive personal collection that he had been building for over forty years. Exploring the space, the enormous scope of the work is obvious with pieces ranging from antiquity to this current decade. 

The restoration itself is Peter Marino’s love-letter to the building and its history, and an example of his affinity for both the old and the new. The 1895-built Queen Anne-style structure once housed the old Rogers Memorial Library before its restoration, which the New York-born architect — and long-time Hamptons seasonal resident — completed last year.

While the foundation invites visitors from far and wide to view the collection and explore the space, Peter Marino keeps the Southampton community in mind by curating the place as an ever-rotating gallery, with new work consistently on display for returning visitors. The newly updated collection sees more than thirty works by Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, ten works by German painter Anselm Kiefer, and fourteen works by Melvin Edwards.

Upcoming is a short talk and book signing with Peter Marino on the photography of Charles Jones at 5pm, Thursday, July 28th. Peter Marino produced a book featuring his collection of the late photographers work, also on permanent view at the foundation. Next at the foundation is Marino’s collection of Sanford Biggers’ work, from July 16th through August 13th.

Vik Muniz, Water Lillies, After Monet, 2005, (center)
image © Jason Schmidt

vik muniz: art from trash and chocolate

Peter Marino showcases an extensive collection of over thirty mixed-media works by contemporary artist Vik Muniz. The São Paulo-born artist is largely known for his use of unusual materials and objects to recreate historical artworks, the final piece being a photograph of the resulting collage. 

Images below show the artist’s work including a series of paintings first re-created with chocolate syrup, then photographed. Namely, The Raft of Medusa — an oil painting completed in 1819 by French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault — is reimagined by the contemporary artist as part of the Pictures of Chocolate series. 

Vik Muniz reinterprets Giovanni Francesco Barbieri’s oil painting Atlas which dates back to 1646. The 2007 re-creation is part of the artist’s Pictures of Junk series, and takes shape as an aerial photograph of carefully arranged garbage waste.

Vik Muniz, C-prints and dye destruction prints including Raft of Medusa, After Géricault, 1999, Parthenon, 2003 
image © Jason Schmidt

Atlas, After Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, 2007 (center), over two Peter Marino bronze boxes
image © Jason Schmidt

anselm kiefer: guilt within landscapes

A collection of ten works by German painter Anselm Kiefer are now on display in the Peter Marino Art Foundation’s ‘Cathedral Gallery.’ Once a former book-stack, the space has been transformed into a soaring double-height gallery with the restoration. The artist was largely influenced by the year of his birth in 1945 — the threshold between the end of World War II and the beginning of the post-war period. He was brought up in the devastation that the war had left behind. As such, his works are solemn, violent, and emotional.

Opus Magnum Blumen, displayed at the Peter Marino Art Foundation, is part of the artist’s series, Lasst tausend Blumen blühen, (Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom). The work explores the shameful events and guilt of his nation through landscapes which, because of the histories of these places, can never depict a reflection of pure beauty.

(front) Anselm Kiefer, Opus Magnum, 2010
(rear) Anselm Kiefer, Opus Magnum Blumen, 2011
image © Jason Schmidt

melvin edwards: the lynch series

Fourteen works by Melvin Edwards are now on display at Peter Marino’s Art Foundation. The small sculptural compositions of found metal fragments make up part of the artist’s Lynch Series, which at once draws from his African American heritage and responds to racial violence. The tiny sculptures are made up of found objects including chains, railroad splices, blades, scissors, hammer heads, and locks. While these materials are sourced from industrial and agricultural contexts and are inherently innocuous, they evoke images of violence, oppression, and incarceration nonetheless.

Melvin Edwards, works from Lynch Series, over a Peter Marino bronze box
image © Jason Schmidt

The Peter Marino Art Foundation is open to the public for timed tours on Fridays and Saturdays. Tickets to the museum can be found here. 

THE DESIGN PRIZE is an annual award program that celebrates excellence on a global scale. Initiated in 2017 and curated by designboom, with patronage by the city of Milan, THE DESIGN PRIZE recognizes both the extraordinary achievements and little sparks of beauty and delight that have emerged over the past 12 months.